Queer theory, policy and education

WithMary Lou Rasmussen, Christina Gowlett

The chapter considers the significance of queer theory for education policy within the context of education policy related to studies of gender and sexuality, and also beyond this frame. Queer theory is consequently useful for analysing the boundaries of acceptability created by, in and through the enactment of policy. Sex, gender and sexuality are not fixed, nor are they dependent upon one another. In this sense, sex, gender and sexuality are performative. It is this instability that opens up possibilities for thinking about and doing gender, sex and sexualities differently. Schools, sexualities and performative subjects act as an ethnographic study of boys, homophobia and different types of masculinity in school contexts. A recurring analytic in education policy analysis has been the understanding of policy 'take up' in schools. The use of queer theory in education policy analysis also provokes one to think about the cultural intelligibilities that policy incites.